To aid the development process, Hansson used the then-obscure Ruby programming language to develop a custom web framework. He released the framework separately from the project management tool in 2004 as the open source project Ruby on Rails. In 2005 he was recognized by Google and O'Reilly with the Hacker of the Year award for his creation of Ruby on Rails.[5]

David Heinemeier Hansson lists photography and race car driving amongst his hobbies.[6] He took part in the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans driving for OAK Racing.[7] He also drove a Morgan-Nissan P2 car for Conquest Racing in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS), winning two races in the season. Heinemeier Hansson joined OAK Racing full-time in 2013, taking five 2nd-place finishes to finish 2nd in the Trophy for LMP2 Drivers.